My name is Andrea Beça. I’m a filmmaker, photographer, and storyteller. I’ve been writing my whole life, and I became a producer/director when I was 19—over a decade ago. I’ve got two degrees, multiple awards, distinctions, and honours under my belt, and I am both proud and grateful to say that I’ve turned doing what I love into my full-time career.

I also live with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and body dysmorphia. A lot of the time, I feel really good and you'd never know. Sometimes this means I feel short of breath in social situations. Other times it means that before I can even get to a social situation, I am on the floor of my bedroom in the fetal position, hyperventilating and feeling absolutely hopeless. Sometimes this lasts for a while, until I am numb and feel like I am living outside of my own body. Sometimes the darkness feels like it’s going to last forever. But the light always creeps back in, and I'm grateful to say that love and hope have always won.

I’ve been a fan of Blake Loates’ photography for some time. I got involved with We All Believe In You (WABIY) when I volunteered to transcribe a portion of the interviews that were going to accompany Blake’s portraits at the official launch of the initiative. I signed myself up because mental health and opening up conversations about mental health has always been very important to me. At the time, I also happened to be in a deep depression as the result of losing a loved one. And about a week into my volunteer gig, one of my friends became suicidal. I spent my days keeping tabs on them, talking them through some of their darkest times, and making multiple emergency calls, both to the police, and to my therapist.

The entire experience made it so clear to me that WABIY needs to exist, and if there ever was a time to make a documentary about WABIY, it’s now, with the help of Telus STORYHIVE's newest documentary edition. Mental illness affects everyone—whether you suffer from it yourself of you love someone who does—and it doesn’t discriminate. We’ve lost some very public figures over the years, making it clear that having your dream job or a lot of money isn’t a cure for mental illness. The number of people dying by suicide is on the rise, and—in the words of WABIY founder Blake Loates—suicide is starting to feel like an epidemic.

More and more people are talking about mental health and mental illness, but conversation isn’t everything—what we need is community. We need to support one another, advocate for one another, and do our best to educate those who don’t understand mental illness and perpetuate the dangerous stigma that surrounds it.

And that’s what this documentary is all about: giving people living with mental illness a voice, normalizing the conversation about mental health, and growing the community of support. I want to highlight the work WABIY and Blake are doing so that we can spread the love and help people across Canada—and all around the world—feel less alone. I also want to do anything I can to support WABIY in creating systemic change so that there’s more support and resources for folks suffering from mental illness. Many people don’t know what to do when someone in their life becomes suicidal, or how to navigate the system to get the help they or their loved ones need when they’re sick. Blake’s work with WABIY is quite literally changing that. The more people learn about WABIY and join the community, the more people learn what assistance and resources are available, and how to support someone who is mentally ill or suicidal. She’s spoken at numerous schools and events, educating thousands on mental health. Every day, by sharing her story, by advocating, and by being open to having the conversation, she’s helping people understand, navigate, and live with mental illness.

The main subjects of this documentary are folks who have been involved in the WABIY community, as well as professionals and leaders in the city who are ready to speak up about their own experiences. From school teachers to psychologists, city councillors, stand-up comedians, youth workers, and family members of those who have died by suicide, we’re showcasing a diverse group of people affected by mental illness, and my hope is that the audience of this piece is as varied and diverse as the people featured in it. My dream for the WABIY documentary is that anyone watching it can identify with it—that they can see themselves represented on screen and feel seen and heard and less alone in their struggles. My dream is that anyone watching the documentary who hasn’t spoken up about their issues will have the courage to reach out—either to a friend, a family member, a professional, or to the WABIY community—and get the support they need. And if they’re not struggling themselves, my dream is that they’ll walk away from a screening of We All Believe in You knowing how to support someone who is. That, in my eyes and heart, would be a huge success.

In order to make this documentary a reality, Blake and I need YOUR help. From today, July 30, until Thursday August 2 at 1pm Mountain Time, you can go to our STORYHIVE page and vote for our project to be made. STORYHIVE will be awarding funding to 15 projects here in Alberta, and another 15 projects in BC. We're hopeful that with the support of our amazing communities, we will be one of those projects!

You don't need to sign up for anything to vote - simply click "VOTE" and you are set!

You get 5 votes per day, and can vote for any given project once per day. We encourage you to check out as many projects as you can and vote for all the ones you'd like to see made! 30 projects will be funded! (Here are a couple you might dig: Queer Scouts, MSed With the Wrong Girl, Go Girl...)

You can vote every day from RIGHT NOW until 1pm Mountain Time (Edmonton time) on Thursday, August 2! Please vote every day to give us the best chance possible of winning the funding we need to make this documentary real!

I cannot thank you enough for your support in making this documentary a reality. Please follow We All Believe in You - The Documentary on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date, get voting reminders, and ultimately to find out if our project has won funding!

As a creative, I often get ideas that I just cannot let go of. Sometimes for months, sometimes for years. (For example, I have multiple theatre and film scripts that have been swimming in my head over over a decade - yes, a DECADE.)

As a creative entrepreneur, my ideas often have to wait until I have a chance to carve out time for them. This year, I'm trying to commit a lot more time to my ideas, because I know when I unleash them, I thrive creatively, spiritually, and emotionally.

This shoot was one of those ideas. It's been on my mind for over a year, and I finally had a chance to make it happen with two extremely talented friends - makeup artist Corinne Simpson of VampireNomad Palette and model/actor Rekha Kapadia (whom you may recognize from my short film, nightwalk.)

If you know me, or even if you just follow me on social media, you know I'm obsessed with string lights. I just LOVE them. I love lights and lightbulbs in general, but string lights have a special place in my heart. I thought it would be really fun to play with string lights as the only light source in a shoot, and to play with highlighter to pick up and emphasize that light.

In a nutshell, it was a fantastic shoot, and I had as much fun editing these shots as I did taking them. It's been hard to narrow down the selection! I'm sharing a handful now. Keep an eye on my Instagram and photography portfolio for more in the future.

I hope you enjoyed looking at these as much as I enjoyed creating them.

A perhaps little known fact about me (though not if you follow me on Instagram): I love photography. When I was a teen, my mom and brother taught me how to use an SLR (yes, in the days of yore, when film was the thing), and as soon as I had saved up enough money, I bought myself a DSLR (some time had passed) in preparation for a huge solo trip to England, Scotland, and Ireland.

I packed a film camera too - for good measure - and returned from a month of travels with over 35 rolls of film and thousands of digital photos. I haven't stopped taking photos since.

Photography is a huge part of my professional life, too. Beyond taking photos to feature on my own website and social media, I do a ton of portrait and detail photography for my podcast, That's So Maven! Taking photos so regularly for the podcast (and getting asked by many of the guests if I'm up for hire) has really inspired me to take the leap and start offering photography services to my clients.

Okay, so truth be told, it's not much of a leap, per se. I know there are a lot of people in my life who are going to read this and say, "finally!!" But it's a new change and I'm very excited for it.